Jol Tulija Part 2 - The Village and Field Service

The village and field service I said Jol Tulija was the most primitive of villages in this area...If you imagined a primitive village with huts and dirt paths...you are not too far off. Children and animals run wild with no boundaries. Everyone knows or is related to everyone and there are no strangers to be weary of. Children as young as 2 are seen running around with each other, no mother in sight. She is likely washing and grinding corn to make the days tortillas. Or scrubbing clothes in the river. The fathers are in the fields working the land, right now bringing in the crops of corn, beans or coffee. They travel on foot mostly and haul their crop home in large sacks on their backs! Some have horses or donkeys to carry the load, one or two have trucks. The day starts at the break of dawn and we wake each day to the sound of children laughing or crying, mothers washing dishes at the “tube” just 20 feet from our bedroom window...turkeys make a lot of noise, and not just gobble-gobble mind you. Yes, the village is lively until about 7pm when it is too dark to be productive. Most children are not in school, they swim and play in the river all day, run through the village discovering things, frequently stopping by “hermana Carina’s” house...yes, we are all Hermana, even Mike, they don’t realize he should be called Hermano! Some of the really timn ones just say Mana...they don’t realize what they are saying, remember Spanish is their second language. When they stop by it is to stare at us in the doorway of the house, ask us how to say things in English, sometimes they offer to help us get water. Once or twice they have asked us for a peso ($.12) Mike cleverly pretends they are asking for a beso (kiss) and he pretends he is going to kiss them, then they run and giggle. It works every time. These are photos of the homes in this village, and here are some beans drying, they will later open them and keep them for the family. They generally keep what they grow for themselves, there is not enough to sell.

A short walk through the village and along the rivers edge brings you to the “lagoon”, a nice swimming spot as you can see. Jol Tulija means “head” (jol) of the water (ja) the village sits near the start of this beautiful river that feeds many waterfalls and streams down the mountain.

Our first day in the ministry began with a 1 hr walk to the nearest village, La Siria. This town straddles the nearest paved main road so it is the closest access to a taxi or van to take you elsewhere. Although here in Chiapas, a “taxi” can mean any obliging driver...any car or truck will happily stop and ask where you are going and take you there for 10 pesos. Hitchhiking!?!? you might gasp...well, I guess so, but it is what everyone does...cars are rare and so are pesos, so the people are willing to share both! Win -win! Don’t worry mom we are always in groups of 4 or more when we do this, I promise! So as you can see from the photos, the area is quite lovely. There are misty mountain views around every corner. It continues to remind us of the rurals of Kentucky. Chiapas is one of the most impoverished states in Mexico, so much of what we see looks just like the unassigned territory of Eastern Kentucky. This day we visited a young woman who needed encouragement to continue coming to meetings. She has only had one formal Bible study, but had already attended all three days of a convention last year and has continued on her own to study and read whatever she could, she has a table filled with Bible literature and wanted the more recent items available. The following week we returned to do the campaign work in her town. We took lunch for all 11 of us and left it in her kitchen that morning. When we returned at 12 she had it all laid out and two large tables set to accommodate us in her families large kitchen. She prepared drinks and tortillas to go with our food and together we all enjoyed a trilingual meal. Lots of word sharing at meal time…”how do you say this?” or “this?” Mike even told the one Spanish joke he knows and it was a big hit! This woman was so happy to have us in her home as if we were her family! Her hospitality was heartwarming. That morning we probably met 10 former students, who long to resume their study. These were some who could not be studied with regularly because of the lack of teachers here to conduct the studies, so they didn’t make progress. However, they miss their studies and were so happy to have even a brief visit. It helped us to see firsthand what we had previously heard of, more students than the local congregation can handle. The bottom photos show you how we get to the territory when Grant and Maritza are with us using their large truck. There are 3 benches in back, up to 6 can fit in the cab creatively, and about 12 or more in the back, with room to pick up a few hitchhikers along the way :)

San Geronimo is a village about 1 hr away by truck. A neighboring congregation has been asked to assist in covering this area and they had their visit of the Circuit Overseer this week so we met with all of them in the front yard of a Bible student’s home for service. We later met back at 12 for lunch at her home as well, she spent the morning preparing tortillas and chicken for all of us, about 40 of us total. Here are photos of us making groups in the front yard, we arrived by trucks pictured below, and left on foot for the territory. In this territory we found the same thing as in La Siria, many potential students, missing the visits they used to have. This area needs more workers. One man is this village offered land for a house and kingdom hall if the friends would promise to stay.

Tortilla preparation in the large kitchen. You can see the used corn cobs in the green bucket below the counter. The brothers gathered the benches from the back of the trucks and created seating areas for most of us. Many friends pack food and lay it all out to share. When we first packed lunch, it was a huge pot of pasta and such...we asked, “why don’t we just make sandwiches?” Well, when we got to the lunch area and saw this custom, we understood that it is better to bring something that can be shared, and then we all get a little bit of everything! Different concept for us, but really nice. As mentioned this was a Circuit overseer week with two congregations meeting, so the group was unusually large. And remember all of this activity occurred out of the home of a dear student!

A bench under a tree was a good place to take a break during service.

Visiting one of many waterfalls in the surrounding area, swimming with new friends!